Letter from Biola University to employees:

Dear Biola Community,

Some of you may have heard about a recent edited video posted on YouTube that has given a false impression of an interaction that took place between a student and campus safety.  A few members of our community are being targeted and threatened by individuals and advocacy groups for pro-life.  Here  is a collection of information that captures Biola’s pro-life conviction.  We believe it helps to articulate Biola’s steadfast commitment to the sanctity of human life, both in its words and actions.

Please know that this is not an issue of pro-life, it’s an issue of treating students fairly and according to stated policies.  The issue here is the student’s behavior and non-adherence of guidelines clearly communicated to her (and all of our students) as defined in the student handbook related to the posting and dissemination of any information around campus.  Since we cannot disclose all the details related to this matter, the one-sided and edited view disseminated online is inaccurate and misrepresents Biola.  This is unfortunate.

Please be in prayer for the individuals in our community that have been unfairly targeted in this video and on the various blog sites.  Please pause today to pray over this matter as a community.  We invite you to pray at your desk or gather with those around you some time this afternoon for an intercessory prayer moment.

If you receive any calls about the situation, please direct them to UCM at extension 4079.  If any of you have questions, university leadership will be available at 2:00 p.m. at the Talbot East Plaza.

Thank you for being in ongoing prayer for our community — particularly that the Lord would help us to respond to this situation with truth, grace and love.

Questions for Biola University:

1. You say the edited video gives a false impression.  Really?  How so?  What would the unedited version tell us that is different?  If you say CBR has borne false witness, then please back up your claim.  Show us the truth of the matter.
2. Did the Biola University Police Chief John Ojeisekhoba not take the aborted-baby photograph from Diana Jemenez’ hands?
3. Did Chief Ojeisekhoba not threaten Ms. Jeminez with arrest and expulsion?
4. Did Biola President Barry Corey not say that we need people with the courage to speak truth into us?
5. Did Dr. Corey not say that we do not need people in our lives who say “peace, peace” when there is no peace?
6. Who among your staff is being targeted?  What do you mean by “targeted?”
7. Who among your staff is being threatened?  What do you mean by “threatened?”  What threats are you talking about?

Biola argues that “we’re all pro-life here” and gushes about what it does concerning abortion (largely half-measures offered as fig leaves) in an effort to avoid any debate over what it refuses to do, and that is to simply expose the whole truth.  Officially, Biola condemns abortion, but the priest and Levite in the Parable of the Good Samaritan would have condemned street violence.  Yet they refused to do the one thing that would help the poor victim.

Words without meaningful action are as empty as faith without works.  James 2:16 warns that “If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good does it do?”  Biola isn’t doing “nothing” for the unborn, but Biola refuses to do what most needs to be done, exposing the horror and inspiring students to do more than mouth platitudes.

Biola University alumnus Diana Jimenez has advised the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR) that Susan Elliott, Director of the Biola Nursing Department, has ordered Biola’s nursing faculty to refuse any request for letters of reference for Jimenez as she applies for nursing positions at hospitals and clinics.  This is in retaliation for Jimenez’s display of abortion imagery at Biola University when she was a student there (about a month ago).  (Link to story here.)

In a face-to-face meeting, Jimenez explained to Elliott that this decision could make it impossible for her to find employment as a nurse.  Elliott reportedly replied that Jimenez “should have thought of that” before she broke the rule forbidding the display of abortion photos on campus.  Elliott told Jimenez that her defiance of Biola’s regulations regarding abortion photos “grieved her heart,” but volunteered that she might be willing to reconsider her decision in one year, contingent upon Jimenez’s rehabilitation, by which she assumedly meant Jimenez’s willingness to abandon any and all future abortion photo displays.

Jimenez also told CBR that when Biola President Barry Corry awarded her diploma at Biola’s May 24 graduation ceremony (the same diploma Biola’s Police Chief had threatened to withhold for displaying abortion photos), he smiled and told her, “You will be a fine nurse.”  If Elliott has her way, Jimenez might never become a nurse.

CBR Executive Director Gregg Cunningham released this statement:

Biola has the legal authority to promulgate regulations which create a climate of ignorance that is conducive to the killing of unborn children.  Biola also has a legal right to enforce those regulations in cruel and vindictive ways.  But by what scriptural authority does Biola help Planned Parenthood conceal the inhumanity of abortion?  By what scriptural authority does Biola persecute students who expose the lies which Planned Parenthood is telling the Biola students whose pregnancies it aborts?  Students may be legally obligated to comply with a regulation which promotes evil, but aren’t they spiritually obligated to defy rules which increase the likelihood that unborn children will be tortured to death?

If a child fell into Biola’s swimming pool and a student in street clothes tried to jump in and save him/her, Biola President Barry Corey would have the legal authority to intercept that rescuer and warn that pool regulations prohibit any entry into the water dressed in other than approved swimming attire.  If the rescuer persisted, Dr. Corey has the legal authority to declare him/her a trespasser and threaten to withhold his/her diploma, suspend him/her, expel him/her, sabotage his/her employment prospects, or even arrest him/her.  But would he have the spiritual authority to order that the child be left to drown?  Would the rescuer be accountable to God or Dr. Corey in this case?  If Jesus cares more about obeying rules than saving lies, why did He repeatedly enrage hard-hearted Pharisees by healing on the Sabbath?

The YouTube video posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tILmCEUzio is drawing comments left by parents saying they will now no longer consider Biola as a potential school at which to enroll their children.  That is sad, but perhaps Biola “should have thought about that” before sweeping abortion under the rug and bullying students who try to drag it back out.  Historically, successful social reform is always about the public display of shocking pictures.  In fact, no great injustice has ever been reformed by covering it up.  Abortion isn’t being reformed, precisely because Biola and most of the rest of the Body of Christ is making it invisible, and therefore, tolerable.

In a follow-up e-mail, Cunningham told FAB,

From a consumer protection perspective, parents have a right to know that this is the sort of vindictive cruelty they are risking when they send their children to Biola.

CBR is urging people of conscience to e-mail Biola and ask the Administration to stop abusing its students with repressive restrictions on expressive rights.  Officials can be reached as follows:

• President Barry Corey, michele.hughes@biola.edu
• Dean of Students Danny Paschall, danny.paschall@biola.edu
• Associate Dean of Students Matthew Hooper, matthew.hooper@biola.edu
• Police Chief John Ojeisekhoba, campus.safety@biola.edu

CBR is also urging people to post comments below the YouTube video that depicts Jimenez’s mistreatment (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tILmCEUzio).

Biola University, a Christian university in La Mirada, California, has threatened a pro-life student with arrest and expulsion for simply showing abortion to her classmates.  While a Resident Assistant at Biola, Diana Jimenez counseled multiple students who aborted children while at Biola.  When Diana followed the advice of Biola President Barry Corey to “speak truth into us,” she was punished for it!

Please let Biola University know of your concern, disappointment, and/or outrage that they would threaten a pro-life student with arrest and expulsion for simply showing a truth that Biola is covering up.

And please thank God for brave young Christians like Diana Jimenez.  She is my new hero!